Lobbying

Just as vapers in several countries began to feel like events may finally be turning in favor of e-cigarettes as a harm reduction tool, the harsh realities of the global public health movement shattered any optimism.

The World Health Organization is just wrapping its Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, known as COP7, in India and according to professor John Britton, Chair of the Tobacco Advisory Group at the Royal College of Physicians in Britain (RCP), the future for vaping looks bleak.

The RCP, Public Health England and the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies have all endorsed e-cigarettes as a vital tool in the battle to end the tobacco epidemic.

Tune in to this special edition of RegWatch and learn why officials from England’s top public health organizations fear that pending WHO regulatory action on e-cigarettes could kill millions of people.

The row over the European Commission’s release of heavily redacted documents documenting its relationship with the tobacco industry is just ‘another dirty drop in an already murky pool’, argues Florence Berteletti.

The adoption of the EU’s revised Tobacco Products Directive should be considered a victory for public health.

However, it also marked the end of five years of controversial lobbying practices by the tobacco industry, which included a multitude of well-documented unsavory events.

One would have hoped that in the aftermath of these events, the European Commission would have learnt some lessons and would now be dealing with the tobacco industry in a different manner.